FairShare Allows Content Creators To Track Content Use

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 04/01/09
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A new site called FairShare allows users to track how their online work is being used by others. Developed by Attributor in collaboration with Creative Commons, the free service allows bloggers and individual content creators to understand how their work is shared across the Web.

FairShare allows anyone creating text content to submit an RSS feed of their work and choose a Creative Commons license to determine how it can be shared. Users then receive license-specific results via RSS with detailed information into how and where their work is reused.

The FairShare service is currently in public beta and includes six types of Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative reuse of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. The FairShare service will be integrated with the Creative Commons license selection process and available in each of the 12 languages that FairShare currently supports.

FairShare leverages Attributor's proprietary tracking index of 35 billion Web pages that automatically finds reuse of as little as a few sentences.

"The launch of FairShare extends our technology to the blogging community, which has always been our goal. Bloggers can now understand how their work is used across the Web," said Jim Pitkow, Attributor CEO and co-founder. "We share a common vision with Creative Commons that content should be shared widely and fairly. Creative Commons licenses are the global standard, and we hope to drive their license usage into new segments of content creators."

"FairShare offers our community a practical and exciting extension of Creative Commons licenses," said Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig. "We are excited to offer the creative and cultural communities around the world visibility of how their work is remixed across the Web."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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